HELPING FOUNDATION IN MEDICAL SCIENCES STUDENTS THRIVE IN TERTIARY EDUCATION: A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR DEVELOPING SELF-REGULATED LEARNERS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35631/IJEPC.1164096Keywords:
Educational Scaffolding, Foundation Education, Learner Autonomy, Medical Sciences, Self-Regulated Learning, Tertiary TransitionAbstract
The transition from teacher-directed secondary education to tertiary study requires students to assume greater responsibility for planning, monitoring and evaluating learning. Foundation in Medical Sciences students may enter with limited preparation for regulating high-volume, conceptually integrated study. Existing self-regulated learning models explain how learners plan, perform and reflect, while transition, scaffolding and co-regulation studies identify useful supports. However, this literature does not provide a context-specific, readiness-sensitive sequence for transferring regulatory responsibility from lecturers to foundation students. Using Torraco’s integrative literature review method, this conceptual article reviews, critiques and synthesises representative literature across self-regulated learning, tertiary transition and health-professions education. An integrative review is appropriate because the framework requires theoretical and empirical evidence from complementary traditions to be combined into a new conceptual model. The synthesis identifies four recurrent problems: independence is often assumed rather than taught; knowledge of study strategies does not ensure adaptive use; excessive control and premature withdrawal of support are both counterproductive; and self-report alone provides an incomplete account of regulation. In response, the article proposes the Guided-to-Autonomous Learning Transition for Self-Regulated Learning (GALT-SRL) framework. Its five recursive stages are assessing readiness, model, guided practice, fade support, and transfer and reflect. Unlike Zimmerman’s learner-centred cycle or scaffolding and co-regulation approaches considered separately, GALT-SRL aligns lecturer actions, student regulatory processes and readiness evidence to govern the staged transfer of responsibility. Six propositions address strategy development, self-efficacy and monitoring, readiness-contingent fading, autonomy-supportive structure, feedback and peer co-regulation, and academic adjustment and learning outcomes. Because the framework has not been empirically tested, it provides a basis for supporting and evaluating students’ development as increasingly self-regulated learners.
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